Our Vows
by Quis of Non Sequiturs
Summary: New Chapter! Xiaoyu trapped in her memories of Jin, reminiscing about happier days, and when it all went wrong. Because Jin always smelled like dumplings.
1. You can run

Xiaoyu watched the water lapping up against the sheer rock cliff, hypnotized by it. Every once in a while a wave would come large enough to get her wet, but she didn't mind. It felt nice in the ninety degree weather. She was lying on her stomach, her back and legs perfectly straight, stretched out. Her head was right up to the edge of the cliff, resting on top of her crossed arms as her dark eyes gazed lazily across the ocean water. Just watching the waves.

It was good to just get away from everything. Only, she wasn't really "getting away" from anything at all. She was just running away from it, and every day she waited in acute unrest for all of her problems to catch up with her. Needless to say, it did not leave her in a desirable mental state. Even on days when she was relaxing, part of her was always stiff, always on edge. She had taken to carrying a knife in a sheath strapped to her thigh at all times. Even now, relaxing in the warvm sunshine, she could feel its grip around her leg under her pink floral sundress.

A deafening British voice came ringing through the dry air and disrupted her sunbathing. She would have jumped, but this particular voice was now familiar to her, "Xiao!" it came calling, very loud the first time and, the second time, accomplishing an amazing feat, much louder still. "XIAO!"

"I heard you the first time!" she called back, bemoaning the disruption of her sunbathing under her breath. Slowly, regretfully, she rolled over pushed herself up. She stretched out, clasping her hands together and raising them high above her head, letting out a long, low sigh as she did. Her skin felt dehydrated and shriveled up from the heat, and she could have sworn she was two inches shorter than she had been two hours prior.

She retrieved her sandals from their resting place and slipped them on her feet; though they had been placed in the shade of a group of Tamarisk trees, they were still uncomfortably hot on the soles of her feet, causing her to stumble, even more than she typically did, up the primitive driftwood stairway to the humble bungalow. Xiao often wondered what kind of an imbecile had built this stairway, as they had chosen possibly the steepest, most awkwardly sloping side of the hill. The pathway led straight from the beach up to the veranda of the bungalow, a constant reminder to Xiao that the straightest path is not always the most desirable.

When she reached the top of the hill she was immediately met by Steve. "Read this," he said to her in a loud, slow voice. It was the same voice you use with children, the mentally ill, or people who don't speak your language, and it was the same tone Steve always addressed her in. Xiaoyu, however, was fluent in English and had been trying to break him of this annoying habit for weeks now, to no avail. She glared at Steve, but before she had a chance to admonish him, he shoved the newspaper into her hands.

There was a large headline on the front page, very attention-drawing. It read: Heihachi Mishima Still Alive. She only browsed the article, but picked up the key details of the story; Heihachi Mishima, who was not dead, had sponsored the King of Iron Fist Tournament 5, and the prize money had not yet been collected by the winner (whose name was left out of the article).

"Heihachi's…. Alive…ness is OLD news. And the newspaper doesn't even have all of its facts straight… Jinpachi sponsored the tournament. You called me away from my sunbathing for _this_?" She glared at him angrily but he just laughed at her.

"Well… that, and drinks," He suavely pulled two martini glasses seemingly from thin air, "How does a Mike's Hard on the rocks with a lemon wedge sound to you?"

"I don't drink," Xiao said, trying to keep a serious face. Steve started laughing, and Xiao soon joined in. Xiao said this every time she drank, and it was now a fond exchange between them. She took the glass from him, sipping it down greedily. Xiao didn't like drinking but, she did. Every time she got hammered, there was that little voice telling her that she couldn't run from her problems. But that was just the direction her life seemed to be going in right now. Running away.

They were having a good time together, drinking, talking about everything from squirrels to cell phones, until Steve said something unexpected, in a serious tone, "Why aren't you wearing your ring, Xiao?" Xiao laughed, snorting a little, but Steve glared at her and she suppressed it.

"It's in my jewelry box, on my dresser. Why does it matter?" Her speech was slurred ever so slightly; it was apparent that she had consumed far more alcohol than Steve.

"Well, because we're married now… Y'know, it's just what married people do," Steve replied, so level-headed Xiao wondered if he had been drinking at all.

"We're not _really_ married, it was just to uh…. You know, escape the Zaibatsu…," Her speech was not only slurred but inflected with an extremely heavy Chinese accent, making it a wonder that Steve could decipher it at all.

"No, Xiao, we really are married. It may not have been a marriage for _love_, but we are married, and people will be suspicious if you don't wear your wedding ring."

"Whatever, we're on an empty beach in Kahooey," She mispronounced the island's name, Kaho'olawe, to a criminal degree, "Nobody's even here to be suspicious," She got up from her seat and headed inside.

"Where're you going?" Steve called after her, annoyed.

"I'm going to bed!" She replied angrily.

"It's only eight-thirty!" he called back.

"I don't care, you're a downer!" Xiao crawled in bed, not bothering to change her clothing, and fell asleep in seconds. Steve stayed outside on the terrace until the sun set over the water.


	2. Sick and Tired

The warm sunlight seeped in through the filthy window, and Xiaoyu awoke from her slumber, feeling like she'd been hit by a truck. Her head pounded viciously, the usual early morning animal noises multiplying about ten times in volume, and each tweet was like a jackhammer against her skull. The gentle sunlight was enough to literally blind her.

Now footsteps were coming down the hall. She groaned. THUNK! THUNK! THUNK! Each step was an additional oversized mallet swung at her head. And then a knocking on her bedroom door, BAM! BAM! BAM! She could have sworn there was an elephant in the hallway.

"Urgh," She moaned, her voice hoarse, "just come in" She felt like she was going to throw up. The door opened up, and Steve entered with a tray of food.

"I cooked up some Spam and eggs . . ." he said gently in that slow, patronizing tone. Xiao didn't mind it today; in fact, she actually found it helpful. He laid the tray on her lap, saying: "And there's some Ibuprofen and orange juice, too."

Xiaoyu downed the Ibuprofen, took one bite of the eggs, and turned pale. "I think I'm going to be sick!" She pushed the tray off her lap, spilling the orange juice, eggs and Spam all over the bed, and rushed down the hall into the bathroom.

Steve sighed and patiently cleaned up the mess. He figured it would be best to leave her alone. Although Xiao and Steve had only been acquainted for about two months, he was already more than used to her violent hangovers.

Steve recalled their meeting in Kyoto, the town where they had "gotten hitched". They had gone out to a bar to celebrate. Xiao was under the legal drinking age of twenty, but it didn't seem to matter. Steve had been surprised to see her drinking. In the fighting world, she was not taken very seriously. He had always labeled her as the "good little schoolgirl" and, well, a bit of a bimbo. But, like many of elite fighters in the Tekken tournaments, the image they portrayed there was just that. An image.

Xiaoyu emerged from the bathroom half an hour later, clutching her stomach, and still looking dreadful. Her usually silky-smooth black hair was matted and tangled, and her eyes were red and bloodshot. She was wearing only her undergarments and a towel wrapped tight around her. Steve was in the hall at the time, cleaning, and when Xiao emerged, he looked up, bemused.

"Don't ask," she grumbled, slumping back off to her room. She crawled back into her bed and fell asleep.

Xiaoyu awoke again several hours later, with a much clearer head and an aggressive appetite. She attempted to extricate herself from her bedcovers, and unintentionally rolled completely off the bed and fell onto the floor with a muffled thud. Though it winded her, she was not severely injured; however, only seconds after her fall Steve rushed into the room with a terrified look on his face that made Xiao laugh.

"Xiao!" he gasped, seeing her on the floor and out of breath, "Are you okay?" Xiao noticed that he was wearing yellow rubber gloves, and he had a wet sponge in one hand and a half-full spray bottle full of bleach in the other, and it made her laugh even harder. However, only seconds later, both Xiao and Steve realized that Xiao was wearing nothing but her undergarments. She stopped laughing, and they simply stared at each other, at a loss of what to say in this situation.

"Agh! Get out, get out! I'm not dressed!" Xiaoyu finally erupted, after several uncomfortable silent moments. She grabbed her pillow off of the floor and hurled it at him full force. It missed, but Steve left the room without a word, looking defeated.

Xiao quickly pulled on a pair of denim shorts and a light pink halter top, in case Steve found the need to barge unexpectedly into her room a second time. She then walked over to her dresser and leaned over, staring into the small make-up mirror sitting on top of it, and groaned at her reflection. Her hair was an utter disaster, and she had large, dark circles under her eyes. The words "Bride of Frankenstein" came to mind. She sighed, and started a long battle between her hair and her comb. Her hair won, refusing to achieve any state higher than "frizzed-out catastrophe."

She gave up, and pulled her hair into as tight a ponytail as she could manage and fastened it there with her favorite scrunchie, a bright pink one patterned with tiny anime-style panda bear heads. She recalled the day it had been given to her, her seventeenth birthday. Miharu had placed it in a very large cardboard box, one which had possibly held a washing machine at one point, and then filled it up with foam packing peanuts. It took Xiaoyu three days to finally find the scrunchie, but from then on she never went anywhere without it. Xiao wondered now how her friends were faring without her.

A long, low growl, which seemed to be coming from Xiao's stomach, interrupted her reminiscing, and she realized how desperately she needed food. She turned and headed for the bedroom door but realized she was forgetting something and stopped. She walked slowly back to her dresser and retrieved the simple 14 carat gold wedding band from her jewelry box and softly slipped it onto her finger. Now she was ready, and she left her bedroom and ran down the hall to the kitchen.


	3. Nothing Makes Sense

Both Xiao and Steve found their days on Kaho'olawe quite tiresome. There was nothing to entertain them or lift their spirits but booze, sun and water. They were fighters, addicts of action, and as nice as it was to relax in the Hawaiian sunlight, it was not enough for them.

They had come to this tiny island because it was off the radar. But they knew the Mishima Zaibatsu would find them eventually; they had been in too much of a hurry to take any particular care in covering their tracks. It would be no difficult task to find out that a Fox Xiaoyu had taken a plane to Maui. But maybe that was what was holding them up... Were they still looking for a Ling Xiaoyu? She didn't think so.

Once they had been tracked to Maui, it would probably be a matter of weeks, tops, of talking to the locals for the Tekkenshu to get back on their tracks. Or, in the unlikely chance that the Tekkenshu had somebody of intelligence with them, only a matter of _hours_ before they deduced that it was quite likely they would head for the uninhabited island only seven miles south of Maui. By all reasoning, the Tekkenshu should have found them four weeks ago. This was what Xiao worried about daily, what she brooded over. She could deal with hand-to-hand combat, but did their absence mean they had something much worse in store for them?

The tiny Hawaiian island was uninhabited in every sense of the word. Xiao figured it was only about ten miles across. Feeling better now, having satiated her hunger, she decided to go on a run around the island, from one end to the other, to keep herself loose. To pass the time. To numb the growing insanity.

Xiao was still at a loss as to why the Mishima Zaibatsu were after her. Sure, she had lived with the Mishima family, been part of their lives, but she had never before been significant enough to be part of their plots. "Why…?" She asked herself softly as she ran through crabgrass and clusters of Tamarisk.

Only a few years ago her life had been simple: she attended school, practiced martial arts, and hung out with her friends (and she did not put much effort into any save the latter). She had entered the King of Iron Fist Tournament 3 far too lightheartedly, just to test out her martial arts skills, and if she was lucky, get Grandpa Heihachi to build her an amusement park. Looking back now, Xiao realized she had no place in that tournament. She did not care much about fighting back then, and the only reason she hadn't been killed was sheer luck and possibly raw talent. The tournament had been way over her head. It had changed everything.

The hot sun beat down on her bare shoulders and she took a large swig from her water bottle. It was too hot to run... She kept running anyway.

_It was a few months after King of Iron Fist Tournament 5, and Xiaoyu packed her bags and left to take an extended vacation in China at her family's sprawling countryside home, to nurse some physical and emotional wounds after her embarrassing loss to Jin Kazama. Xiao was touched that her entire family would go out of their way and take a vacation simply to life her spirits, but the truth was that she couldn't stand her relatives. In every single sense, they were normal. Xiao couldn't relate to them, and spent much of her time holed up in her room, listening to music and surfing the web. _

Xiao had a terrible stitch in her side now, and was panting ferociously. She had already reached one edge of the island and was now heading back; she guessed she had run seven miles so far.

_It was an ordinary day, early spring, when Xiao was in her bedroom, instant messaging Miharu, with Linkin Park blaring in the background. _

♪ it's like i'm paranoid lookin' over my back ♫

_Her soul was shriveling inside from how mundane it all was. And so, of course, she was completely off her guard when the first blow of the attacker's fist sent her spinning and flying out of her computer chair. But now the fight was on, and Xiao's heart was racing with excitement. Her attacker wore black ninja garb, his entire face covered except for his eyes, which were dark and cold._

Xiao's legs were seizing up now. She was out of shape after lying around this island for a little over a month. She slowed her pace. It was late afternoon now, and she could see the sun was heading farther and farther to the west.

♪ it's like a whirlwind inside of my head ♫

_Though she was winded from the attack, she got up and readied her fist with a manic grin on her face. The man still showed no emotion, no fear. He came at her again, swinging a heavy, yet clumsy, fist in her direction. She ducked and swung her body quickly to the left, knocking over a lamp, shattering the beautiful stained glass, but she had no time for its destruction at the moment. The ninja was off balance, falling forward, his fist still outstretched. All in the blink of an eye, she grabbed his arm with both her hands, holding him still, and swung her leg up at lightning fast speed, planting it firmly in his groin. He crumpled. Xiaoyu kicked him once more as he lie on the ground for good measure. She was almost sad that this man was so incompetant. She wanted the fight to go on longer._

Xiao was still about two miles from the bungalow, but she needed a rest. She sat down on the hot, sandy ground and chugged her water bottle until it was all gone. There was no shade around, and she wiped the sweat from her brow.

_Xiao interrogated the underling, who confessed he had been sent by the Tekkenshu. After that encounter, she packed her bags and left, leaving the underling passed out in her bedroom. She slipped a note about what had happened under Grandpa Jinrei's bedroom door. He had experience with the Zaibatsu, he understood the danger. Xiao flew back to Japan, hoping to find friends and safety._

♪ paranoia's all i got left ♫

As she ran through that hot deserted island, Xiao reflected on that event (the first time she had been attacked by the Tekkenshu) and tried to make sense of it. She had done absolutely nothing that she could think of to cause to Zaibatsu to come after her. This was her truth: they were after her, her life was on the line, and she needed to look after it.

♪ its like i can't stop what i'm hearin' within♫ 

Xiao got up from her resting place, stretched out, and brushed the sand off of her denim shorts. She was out of water now, and needed to get back to the bungalow soon. She did a few more leg stretches to loosen up for the rest of the run. However, as she readied for her run, her ears picked up a small rustling noise in the bushes behind her, and her body went tense.

♪ its like the face inside is right beneath my skin♫


	4. But you can't hide

The deserted island offered little decent cover, but luckily this woman was quite skilled at keeping herself hidden. Though it caused her to heat up like an oven and sweat like a fountain, the tan bodysuit she wore assisted her in blending in with the dry scenery. _This mission is insulting_, she thought wryly. _Watching a little girl_? _This is the dullest assignment I've ever been on_.

She pulled out her camera - a thin, sleek one. _Silent, too_, she thought. She took a couple of snapshots of the girl sitting on the hot ground, sweating and panting. The photograph was more like soft core porn than anything that could offer her employer "intelligence". _What a bore_.

She had received a profile on this girl, "Fox (Ling) Xiaoyu," which had proclaimed that she was a master fighter, "not to be taken lightly" it had said. Well, she didn't put much stock in that. _This girl looks like she still belongs in middle school! Since when did my resume have "babysitter" on it?_

This Fox Xiaoyu got up from her resting place and began stretching, preparing to complete her run, so she decided to get up from her hiding place (not that it was much of a hiding place, she was just crouched behind a tiny patch of dry bushes and a mini boulder) so she could trail the girl. She raised her head a little bit higher but still stayed low to the ground, exercising great caution.

Much of surveillance is talent, but there is at least a respectable amount of luck involved, and she realized this when she accidentally dropped her camera back into the brush. It made a small rustling noise. _Shit_, she thought, almost saying it out loud but restraining herself. She bent back down into the brush quickly, and thrust her hand into it. The branches were sharp and dry and scratched her skin as she reached around, trying to find the undersized camera as fast as she could without making any more noise. Finally, her nimble fingers made contact with the black plastic, and she retrieved the camera, but when she stood back up, the girl was nowhere to be seen. _Shit._

"Stand up, and don't move," It was a female voice, inflected with an odd mix of both a Chinese and British accent. She felt a hand reach around her neck and hold the blade of a knife against it.

"Shit," was all she could say. She had been too cocky, and now she was paying for it. But really, _shit_, this was not good.

"Who are you?" the voice was cold, and each word was enunciated with particular force. The girl dug the small blade further into her neck, pressing hard against her windpipe and drawing some blood. She tried to answer, her choking and gagging made her answer impossible to understand, and the girl let up on the blade. So now she knew what kind of a girl her target-turned-attacker really was, and was able to plan her next move.

"I'm nobody! I was sent by the Tekkenshu! M-my name is Lilith. Please don't hurt me, I'm only following orders!" Lilith liked to think that guile was her best quality. She'd employed her most convincing pleading tone, and it had just the effect she had hoped for: Xiaoyu released the knife from her neck, not completely but just enough for Lilith to seize her opportunity. With all the angry power of her self-learned street-fighting technique, she swung away from the threat of the girl's blade, executed a swift about face, and planted a kick square in her lower torso. It sent the girl flying backwards, and she came down hard, smashing her head against a rock, knocking her out. Lilith figured the girl would be lucky if she didn't get a concussion.

_Hmm, I really am good_, she thought with a small laugh. _Some people are so predictable!_

Lilith walked over to where the girl lay unconscious on the ground, and pulled a compact spool of cord out of her utility belt. It was thin, but strongly woven; it could withstand two tons of force. She quickly and effectively tied up the girl's ankles and wrists (she had done this so many times now that it was second nature to her) and picked the girl up and swung her over her shoulder like a knapsack. The girl was only about 90 pounds, and it was no trying task to carry her. It was a wonder any girl so small could fight at all.

It was very late now. The sun was low down and sinking quickly into the ocean. Lilith didn't mind, she had excellent night vision, and was thankful for a little relief from the intolerable heat. Though she was a little miffed that she had to walk five miles, carrying a little Chinese girl, to get to her motor boat, she still felt quite pleased over with how the mission had gone down. It had been far too long since she had been in a face-to-face confrontation with one of her victims. The last time that had happened she'd been on a mission from the Syndicate.

That damned Lei Wulong! How he'd managed to take down the Syndicate, Lilith would never know, but she chalked it up to dumb luck more than anything else. Lilith missed her days with the Syndicate. _They_ had recognized her talent and used her effectively, and she had been one of their top assassins and emissaries. Now she was trekking through the desert carrying a little girl on her back.

After many of the members of the Syndicate were prosecuted, Lilith had fled to rural Romania. While there, she had tried to go freelance as an assassin, but, (possibly because she didn't speak Romanian, or maybe nobody in Romania needed to be killed) it did not go too well.

One day she'd received an anonymous letter, asking her to come to Tokyo. When she'd arrived, she had been approached by the head of the Mishima Zaibatsu, a creepy Japanese guy that gave off some kind of Jack the Ripper aura. He'd offered her a job with his company's secret police, the "Tekken Force" he'd called it, but everybody else just called it the Tekkenshu. "Great Opportunities" she had been offered. _Hah!_ The jobs she was sent on were kid stuff, the people she worked with were incompetent, and the entire setup of the organization was a convoluted mess.

The sun was down entirely now, and the only light she had to go by was the dim glow of the half moon. _You'd think they would put a flashlight in these things_, she thought while rummaging through her utility belt for anything that could help her see in this darkness. Lilith should have known better than to let herself be distracted, especially so late at night and in such poor visibility. It would have been in any assassin training book. Probably rule one. Lilith just didn't _read_ instruction books.

In any case, it was too late now, as Steve Fox materialized out of the thick, dark abyss and grabbed the preoccupied Lilith by her neck with his gorilla-sized hands and squeezed tightly. He put his mouth very close to his ear and whispered something. She could feel his hot breath inside her ear, warm and moist. It was inhuman, almost demonic, whisper. The way he had said it… It was like he was either cursing or praying. But it had unmistakably said, "Put down my wife."

Lilith struggled against Steve's hands, clawing and tugging at them while gasping in terror, but it was no use, they were rock solid. She slid Xiao off her shoulder, dropping her hard on the ground with a painful-sounding thud. Her head felt lighter and her vision grew darker, but she kicked and clawed until the very end.

----

A gentle rocking motion and a loud roaring noise brought Xiao back to consciousness. She felt like somebody was squeezing her head between a giant vice, and she let out a terrible moan. She didn't remember where she was, or how she had gotten there or what had happened before she blacked out; at first she thought she was just extremely hung over. But slowly her memory returned to her, and she recalled bits and pieces of things that had happened before she'd blacked out. She had been going for a run… And… There was a woman, a really tall woman, with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes and that skintight bodysuit. And… That woman had knocked her against a rock, knocked her unconscious.

With a frightened shudder, Xiao deduced what must have happened, and where she undoubtedly was. She opened her eyes for the first time since she had come to consciousness. She glanced around, flicking her eyes from left to right but not wanting to draw attention to herself. She let out a silent gasp as she saw her kidnapper huddled in the corner on the other side of the boat, facing away. Xiao did not want to know what fearsome fate this "Lilith" had in store for her, so she decided to seize her chance. Lilith must not have been paying very close attention to her surroundings, for she didn't make a move as Xiao crept slowly over there, her fist raised in fighting stance. However, before she had the chance to make her move, a booming voice erupted behind her that caused her to jump almost two feet into the air.

"Xiao! What are you doing! She's already unconscious!" Xiao turned around frantically to see Steve sitting at the end of the boat next to the motor, flipping through a newspaper. Her first reaction was to wonder how he kept getting current newspapers out in the middle of nowhere. Her second reaction, however, was much more dramatic.

"STEVE!" She cried, as she leapt into his arms and kissed him full on the lips, so energetically it caused the boat to rock and sway. Xiao quickly pulled away, shocked at herself, and the two of them looked quite flushed. Xiao murmured a barely intelligible, "sorry," but truthfully neither minded the embrace.

"Glad to see you're conscious," he said, smiling and putting down his newspaper, "How does your head feel? You have quite a nasty bump and a large cut," Xiao noticed that he was no longer talking to her in that frustrating patronizing tone, something that he had formerly only accomplished when he was drunk. She was quite glad that he had stopped.

"Mm, it hurts but I think I'm okay," She reached up to her head and felt around with the palm of her hand until she found the bump he was talking about. She ran her fingers over it a few times, despite the fact that every time she touched it, a sickening shock of pain coursed through her body. Xiao wasn't sure if it was simply morbid curiosity, or if she liked the pain, but ran the tips of her fingers over it up she had committed every shape and contour to memory. When she took her hand down off her head, she saw that it was caked in blood, but she wasn't too worried about it. She had obtained much worse injuries in the King of Iron Fist Tournaments.

"Soooo," Xiao asked, getting back on topic, "Why is she unconscious over there?" She pointed to Lilith who was tied up and hunched over in the corner.

Steve sighed for a second and looked away from Xiao as if he was ashamed of something, but after a moment, he replied, "Because I strangled her," the regret in his voice came out loud and clear, and it baffled Xiao.

Steve was still angry that he had reacted so violently. He figured he had been acting for a good cause, but still he wondered: Am I a good person?

"Oh, well, thanks for saving me I guess," Xiao said tentatively. This was a side of Steve she hadn't seen before. Sure, he was a bit quiet, sometimes even a little introverted, but she had always considered Steve a mostly upbeat person, even kind of normal. But now she saw somebody deep in conflict. She saw him dealing with emotions that she had dealt with oh so many times in the past. She decided it would be best to let him alone.

She again focused her attentions back onto the unconscious Lilith. Xiao was still incensed at this woman who had played on her sympathies so cruelly. She grabbed Lilith by her collar and slapped her, hoping to wake her up, or at least give her a decent bruise.

Lilith stirred, opening her eyes, looking quite out of it and slightly glazed as she slowly came to full consciousness. "Aw, FUCK it ALL," she exclaimed, once she came to full realization of where she was and what had happened. She struggled against the bonds on her wrists but it was no use; Steve had tied her with the very cord she had used on Xiao earlier. Lilith knew it wasn't worth it but that didn't stop her from struggling like a rabid squirrel on speed. She hissed and spat expletives every once in a while, and tried her best to squirm her way over to Xiao and bite her. At that point Steve decided he would step in. He grabbed her by the throat again, and she stopped her struggling and went limp, glaring at him like an irritated cat.

"Will you listen to us?" He asked her, squeezing her throat a little harder, but not hard enough to choke her, yet. She nodded her head vigorously in response to his question and he released his hands

"Okay! Don't hurt me, please. And uh, don't kill me neither," She cringed now. Lilith often figured that she could have been an actress; acting is merely the art of lying quite convincingly, and hell, she did that every day of her life.

"You will come with us and tell us _everything_. As our prisoner. One wrong move and I will gut you myself," Steve growled, stabbing her with an icy glare and she cringed again and nodded her head even more vigorously.

"You don't _have_ to make a wrong move. The next time you _hiccup_ I'm going to SLIT YOUR THROAT!" Xiao, who had retrieved her knife, lunged at Lilith, brandishing it like a madwoman. At first, Lilith figured that Xiao would simply lunge and stop there but as she lunged, some kind of animal instinct took over and Xiao threw the knife down behind her and jumped on top of Lilith, and started clawing at her and pulling out her hair as Lilith, still tied up, bucked squirmed. It could have come right out of one of those cheesy soap operas that Steve's surrogate mother used to watch.

"AGHHH get off of me you crazy bitch!" Lilith screamed, trying her best to injure Xiao in any way she could – her teeth were quite formidable – but Steve pulled Xiao off before anybody got seriously injured.

"EVERYBODY PLAY NICELY!" Steve bellowed at the top of his lungs. Xiao and Lilith cringed and then froze, and stared up at him like attentive schoolchildren. "Okay then! We're headed back to Maui and we are taking the first plane to Great Britain. You there, you can either come with us and act like everything is perfectly fine, or try your luck swimming three miles back to land with your arms and legs tied together. It's your decision."

"Fine, kiddos, I guess we're going to old Mother England," She said the line in a terrible mock British accent and Steve glared at her again. Lilith smirked at him, but still decided to change the subject, "Don'tcha think people will wonder what the hell I'm _wearing_?" It was true, the sandy colored skin-tight bodysuit, while quite ideal for espionage, did not exactly blend in.

Steve chucked a suitcase at Lilith. Xiao's suitcase. Xiao wasn't exactly sure how he'd had time to grab their suitcases before hijacking Lilith's motorboat. He was just magical like that. The suitcase landed on top of Lilith's lap and Steve mumbled, "There you go, knock yourself out," before going back to his newspaper.

Xiao glared at him, and then glared at Lilith, angry at the both of them. She didn't much like the idea of that awful woman wearing her clothing, and she was angry that Steve had shown so little respect to her things (though she decided she would forgive him for doing it; he did look rather preoccupied).

And the entire time Lilith just sat there, staring at Xiao like she was a moron. Xiao kept staring back, and raised an eyebrow, until finally Lilith let out a frustrated sigh and said, "Hello? I'm _still tied up_!" Xiao just glared at her for a few moments longer, before she went over and started untying Lilith's limbs, scratching her with her fingernails whenever she got a chance.

The two of them did not break out into another fight, but instead glared coldly at each other and made a stab at the other whenever they could. Lilith, who was completely untied now and nursing scratched wrists, picked up Xiao's suitcase and started rummaging through its contents. She insisted on picking up, viewing, and critiquing every piece of clothing and then putting them back, unfolded and askew. Xiao decided she'd had enough of this after Lilith had picked up one of her bras, examined it closely, and mumbled "She's a B?" with a small laugh.

Xiao glared and retrieved her suitcase from Lilith, saying, "Here, I have something for you," with a devious smile. She reached in and pulled out a short red paisley spaghetti strap dress and threw it Lilith.

Lilith, who was not a bashful person, stripped down to her unmentionables, much to the chagrin of Xiao, and pulled on the dress. She stood up quickly to examine the dress, and Xiao burst out laughing.

"Agh! This thing doesn't cover my _ass_!" Lilith yelled, coming _this_ close to jumping on Xiao. Lilith was 6'5", more than a foot taller than Xiao, and Xiao had pulled out the shortest dress she owned. Lilith grumbled at Xiao to give her a pair of shorts, but Xiao ignored her as she refolded her clothing.

Somehow, Steve had managed to completely block out the two of them as he stared pensively out across the water.

He wondered why he'd eloped with Xiao, this girl that he barely knew. Sure, she had some valid logical reasons for doing it: she needed help to escape the Zaibatsu, and if they were married they would be able to travel the world together more easily, and they would be able to pool their resources and they would be less suspicious when traveling together. Well, that was what she had said. But mostly he figured she was just a little crazy. Just like he was probably a little crazy for going along with her.

Steve had a choice to make, one that would decide how he was viewed by posterity, or history books or magazines or whatever the hell somebody decided to chronicle his life in. Hell, he could end up in a medical book, "In-Vitro Pregnancy during Cryogenic Sleep" or something like that.

He wanted to know if he was a good person, but reflecting back on his life, he could not honestly say yes.


	5. Hostage Pt 1

Xiao, Steve and Lilith arrived at Maui around three in the morning. With no on-land vehicle to use, and no taxi cab in sight, they trekked from the shore to the airport, which took about an hour - they arrived at Kahului airport around four in the morning. The tickets cost about $1,600 dollars each, which Steve paid in cash. Xiao filed that away as yet another of Steve's magical abilities.

There were no non-stop trips from Maui to London, or anywhere else in Great Britain for that matter, so they had to take a half hour flight to Oahu. That trip went by quite uneventfully, except that not a word was exchanged throughout the flight. Perhaps they wanted to keep the ambience of drama, or maybe they just had nothing to say to each other. That trip was uncomfortable for Xiao. She hated flying.

And now it was an hour-long wait at Honolulu International Airport for their flight to San Francisco to arrive.

The moment their flight landed, Lilith snuck off to a bar somewhere. Xiao and Steve both figured it wasn't the greatest idea to let Xiao's would-be captor run around off the hook, but neither had the energy to run after her. If she wanted to miss their flight and escape it would be no great loss. So they just sat there, surrounded by hordes of bleary-eyed, jet-lagged people coughing and quieting crying babies at seven in the morning with the light streaming in through the window.

Xiao fundamentally hated waiting. It bothered her when she couldn't set the events of her life into motion on her own, but rather had to depend on some outside force to do it for her.

"Hey, Steve," Xiao nudged him gently. He put down the newspaper he'd been reading to indicate that he was listening, and Xiao went on, "I'm gonna go grab a coffee and some food. Watch my stuff," He nodded his approval and went back to his newspaper. Xiao picked up her handbag – a cute little light blue one with bows and a little lace that she'd outgrown about two years ago but kept simply for the nostalgia – and headed for the small Starbucks on the second floor.

It occurred to Xiao as she walked through the sleepy airport that she must smell and look like something a feral creature fished out of a garbage can. She hadn't showered in three days.

She stepped onto the escalator and it moved beneath her. She had an odd thought at that moment: this escalator was her life right now. She had simply stepped on and now it was carrying on beneath her without her will and would keep carrying on once she got off. She was powerless.

The scent of coffee beans emanating from the Starbucks down the hall broke through her reverie, and she pushed her thoughts aside and gave in to her hopeless addiction to caffeine. The queue outside the tiny Starbucks booth was outrageous – especially considering there were at least three other coffee stands in sight.

It was her turn. She placed her order, "Grandẻ white iced mocha with whipped cream and one of those blueberry muffins." She handed him the twenty and got about thirteen dollars of change back. An almost overpowering urge to slap the pimply-faced barista came over her. Seven bucks for coffee and a muffin? Outrageous.

But she didn't. She just tried to smile at him as her lower lip started trembling. She pushed past the crowd and seized a table.

Xiao was feeling a lot of pent-up anger, anger which had been building for almost two years, and now she was slowly dolling it out to the world. Xiao wasn't sure she even knew who she was angry at. Or, maybe, she just didn't want to approach the subject at all. All she knew was that at this particular moment, her greatest desire was to be in a room _full_ of fine china, just so she could take every piece and throw it against the floor in a fit of combined laughter and rage and depression – angry tears mixing with broken porcelain - just so she could destroy something. Maybe she would write names on the plates of the people she was angry at. Well, just one name, she thought, just one person. Every single plate would have "Jin" written on it.

And soon that desire gave way to an entirely new one. A desire to just bawl her eyes out until she couldn't anymore.

"Miss, your order," The young boy said, jolting her back to reality. She gave him a pretty, genial smile and took the drink and the little paper bag from him. It always amazed her how she could push her feelings so far down inside herself that don't show up on the surface. But, maybe that wasn't really a good thing.

For _so long_ she had simply smiled on the outside and looked pretty and played the part she was expected to play, and all the while on the inside these terrible thoughts and emotions lay dormant, rotting and festering until they were more terrible than ever before.

Her seat was uncomfortable. The tables and chairs were crafted out of twisted iron which was hard on her back. It was artistic craft above practicality and comfort. These chairs and tables shouldn't be here, in this tiny Hawaiian airport outside a tiny Starbucks booth. They should be hanging on my wall, she thought, so I can look at it all day long and lose my problems in the swirling and twisting and intertwining of the metal. It pained her that such a beautiful work of art had been mass produced and placed in probably every Starbucks in the country, to have its originality stripped away and its craft recognized by only a rare few. But she still didn't want to _sit_ on it.

She downed the muffin in about six seconds flat. She'd eaten it all before she'd been able to taste it. Passersby stared at her, at the crazy Asian girl that smelled like trash and was covered in dirt and was binging on muffins. In that moment, surrounded by staring people, she felt lonelier than she had in her entire life. She felt like crying again, and repressed it again.

Xiao realized this was the first time she had sat down for coffee without Jin at her side.

Suddenly she felt like somebody had reached inside of her and grabbed her stomach and was twisting it in their fist; she felt sick. Just thinking about Jin Kazama made her feel sick to her stomach, but, somehow, in the best way possible.

She saw a mental image of his eyes now. She loved how those eyes always looked at her as if she was the only thing in the world. Xiao remembered a time when they hadn't been so hopelessly full of despair but that time was long gone now.

"_Jin? Jin, are you listening to me?" The coffee shop was themed in colors of toffee and chocolate, pallets obviously chosen to set the senses in motion and get the customers to buy their products. When Jin didn't reply she waved her hands rapidly in front of his face, and he gasped and looked at her. "Argh! You weren't listening to me! I'm so mad at you," She tugged dramatically at her short pigtails. Xiao had a habit of stating every emotion she felt. Most found it annoying, but Jin found it adorable._

"_Sorry Xiao," He laughed and smiled apologetically. _

"_Your latte is probably cold!" She whined. Jin took a long sip on it just to appease her._

_Xiao was sweet. Innocence Incarnate, or something like that. But she acted more like 6 than 16. _

"_Hey, Xiao?" He asked her after a second._

"_Yeah?" she asked him. She had both her elbows on the table and was staring at him with a slightly dreamy look._

"_Are you sure you want to enter the King of Iron Fist Tournament?" He said it as though it was merely an afterthought, but truthfully this question had been burning in him for a long time. _

"_Of course, you silly goose!" she giggled, "That's the entire reason I'm here, isn't it?" About a year ago Xiao had snuck onboard a Mishima Zaibatsu yacht and wiped out an entire squad of tekkenshu when she'd been discovered. When Heihachi found her, she challenged him to a fight. Instead, he just laughed and promised to give her what she wanted most, a theme park, if she won the Tournament he was going to hold in a little over a year. That was when she'd come to live with the Mishimas… and Jin._

_Jin said nothing more, but simply took a long sip on his latte again._

Xiao looked back at that scene with emotions that lay somewhere between rage and glee. But now the memories were coming on their own, uncontrolled. Memories that were far less light-hearted.

_The stadium was large enough to hold about two football fields, though it didn't need to be. The actual ring was in the middle, and it was fairly small and surrounded by a gate of some sort. Xiao stood just behind the threshold of the large opening to the actual stadium. Large enough for a car to pass through, she thought. She knew her opponent, whoever it was, stood in the same position as she on the opposite side of the stadium. They were as far as they could be from each other right now, but in moments they would be face-to-face in combat. She didn't know who it was; part of the challenge of the Tekken tournaments is that you are unaware of your opponent until seconds before the match starts. It makes you think on your toes to combat a variety of different fighting styles._

_The announcer walked out onto the field holding the microphone. He was a fairly good-looking man in his late twenties with a charismatic air and a stereotypical announcer voice. His role was limited to looking good for the job and announcing who was fighting whom. Xiao waited with bated breath, until he finally flicked on the mic and said, "Round Six. Ling Xiaoyu versus Jin Kazama."_

_Xiao gasped in disbelief. If anybody had been near her at the time she probably would have flipped out at them. This couldn't be possible! No way! The laws of the universe can't allow this, this is Jin. I'm Xiao. This must be a cosmic mistake. She knew they had both entered the tournament, yet she had never considered, not even once, the possibility that they would face each other in battle. But as they both walked out onto the field and headed for the ring, she saw that her opponent was, unmistakably, Jin Kazama._

_She felt half-sick and half-numb. It wasn't a good combination. She opened the gigantic, over-dramatic door to the ring and walked to the middle, half-heartedly going into fighting stance. She was so close to Jin she could've kissed him. "Jin, I…" She started, but she didn't know what to say to him. Jin, I love you? Jin, I don't want to fight you? Jin, I can't believe this? None of them seemed sufficient._

"_I'm sorry, Xiao…" was all he could manage before the bell rang the start of the match. It lasted twenty seconds, but Xiao knew she'd been beat before it had even begun. She was in emotional shock. Fighting Jin was terrifying. He fought with a destructive power she'd never seen in him before, like a machine. He didn't seem like Jin._

_After the fight she went out for ice cream with Miharu and had a good long cry._

"Hey, hey you!" it was the slurred voice of Lilith, "Our flight leaves soon, c'mon… stupid," Lilith laughed raucously as if she'd just cracked a hilarious joke. Xiaoyu glared at her, but took satisfaction in the fact that Lilith's lacy pink panties were still showing beneath the undersized dress. It was a wonder than none of the security personnel had asked her to put on more clothing. But then Xiao realized that all the security personnel were men.

Sighing, in a much deeper depression than she had been in an hour ago, Xiao got up from the chair. She realized her mocha was now a whitish watery mush with melted bits of whipped cream floating in it. She chucked it in the rubbish bin and headed off behind the stumbling Lilith.

"Now boarding Hawaiian Airlines Flight Ten to San Francisco, California," A pleasant female voice with an American accent came over the loudspeakers, and they quickened their pace.

They met up with Steve at the gate, boarded the plane and took their seats. Xiao was lucky enough to have a window seat on the left side of the plane. Steve was sitting in the front of the Economy Class section, in the middle row in the right-hand isle seat. To his left were two young children (a girl who looked to be about eight and a boy who looked to be around five) and a quite frazzled looking mother.

Steve was playing some sort of clapping game with the girl to his left. She was giggling and having a great time, but her mother glared at Steve and gave him a don't-you-touch-my-little-girl-you-creep look. He sensed this and reached across the row offering her his oversized hand, "Hallo, ma'am," he flashed the woman his trademark 'dreamboat' smile, "I'm Steve Fox, middleweight boxing champion of the world. Here's a signed photo," he pulled a signed photograph out of his jacket and handed it to her.

Xiao wished she'd been able to see the expression on the woman's face, but the whole scene was still enough to cause Xiao to break down into uncontrollable laughter. The astute-looking middle-age woman seated next to her glared at Xiao and she did her best to stop laughing (but kept letting out little snorts of laughter every few seconds for a few more minutes).

The plane had finished taking off now and was completely level. The moment passengers were allowed to remove their seatbelts, Xiao saw Lilith, who was seated a few rows in front of her, call the waitress for some more alcohol. The girl had to be at 0.12 blood alcohol content now, at least.

However, the rest of the flight did not go as entertainingly, and about fifteen minutes into the flight, Xiao tilted her head backward and closed her eyes, hoping to get some sleep. However, sleep simply would not come to her, no matter how hard she tried. Her mind kept running through various events until, inevitably, it came back to the topic she had been thinking of earlier. Jin simply would not leave her mind.

Dumplings wafted across her senses. She could smell and taste them, very literally, but she knew it was all in her head…

Because Jin always smelled like dumplings…

_The dining room table at the Mishima's Tokyo home was about five times longer than it needed to be. Heihachi always sat at the head of the table in a perversely grandiose chair that could've fit in at some renaissance era French castle. _

_Normally, the only people who ate dinner at the dining room table in the Mishima's Tokyo home were Jin, Xiao and Heihachi. They always dressed up for dinner; it was some sort of unwritten rule. When Xiao had arrived there, an entire closet of evening gowns in her size had appeared in her room. She didn't want to know how many thousands of dollars each one had cost._

_This night, it was a silk forest-green number, adorned with far too many tiered ruffles falling down the backside. It did little to flatter her slightly-chubby, petite, fifteen-year-old frame. She was wearing her hair down; it was cropped to shoulder length, completely straight and neat with a long set of bangs falling down over her forehead. The style only helped to make her face look much plumper than it truly was. Jin still thought she looked pretty._

_Xiao and Jin always sat across from each other on the opposite end of the table as Heihachi. It was almost comical when the three of them tried to carry on conversations with each other. _

"_So, Jin," Heihachi started, "how's your training coming along?" He asked this same question every single night at dinner, and always received the same answer._

"_It's going great, Grandfather."_

_And once that was over they could start with the real conversation._

"_Miharu told me the funniest story earlier today!" Xiao smiled cutely, "So it was in her English class, the teacher was telling them about double negatives. He says, 'In the English language, a double negative forms a positive. However, there is still no language in which a double positive forms a negative,' and in the back of the class some kid yells out, 'Yeah, right!'" She doubled over into a hysterical fit of giggles. Jin and Heihachi began laughing after a couple uncomfortable moments. It was more likely that Heihachi was laughing at Xiao than at her joke._

_Several hours later, the table was cleared now. The room was cleaner than a hospital. The room was empty except for Jin and Xiao. They were both in casual clothes now. Wrinkled jeans and wrinkled shirts. They were both barefoot. On top of the table. Making out._

_He was eighteen and she was fifteen. But they didn't let it go any further than kissing and intertwining their toes and falling madly, deeply in love with each other. _

_They fell asleep there and the maid found them the next morning. Half a year before the tournament. Bliss._

Xiao was jolted out of her bittersweet moment by reality. Or, more specifically, an extremely drunk Lilith tugging on her arm, "Xiao?" she tugged again, harder this time, "Xiao! Xiao, Xiao, Xiao… I need pants."

At first, Xiao had no idea what she was talking about, "What…?"

"There's this perverted guy sitting next to me he keeps staring!" she mumbled half of it and yelled half of it.

"Um, Lilith… when you're sitting down, there's nothing _to_ see, your ass will be in the seat..." the prudish woman sitting next to her looked appalled.

"Yeah, whatever, I know he's eying my goodies now fork over the pants Xiao!" Xiao knew it was no use to argue with anybody this drunk, and pulled her suitcase out of the overhead compartment and pulled out a pair of shorts and handed it to Lilith. She pulled them on right there in the middle of the aisle. They were so small on Lilith that they didn't cover much more of her ass than her panties, but she seemed satisfied and went back to her seat. Xiao saw her a minute later obviously flirting with the guy next to her. She turned her attentions to Steve, who seemed to be asleep. She retreated back into her memories again. They had about four and a half hours before they arrived in San Francisco.

_The sky overhead was so full of stars, it was almost as if they were floating in outer space._

_The building was flat on top, and made out of some kind of stucco or concrete or some other kind of cold hard material that Xiao knew nothing about. _

_The Mishima's Tokyo Mansion was very rectangular and modern. Cold and hard and straight. Futuristic, kind of. Xiao liked to call these houses "robot houses". They seemed so cold and lifeless to her. Nothing at all like the cute, traditional Chinese country home she'd been raised in._

"_Jin?" She asked him, laying on top of her fluffy pink sleeping bag and turning over to face him._

"_Yeah?" he replied, turning to face Xiao as well._

"_I love you," she said dreamily as she looked toward the stars and sighed. _

_Jin did not say anything for quite a long time, but the silence was not an uncomfortable one. Finally, after about three minutes, he spoke up, "Xiao?"_

"_Yeah?" she asked him, smiling to herself, anticipating his reply. But there was none; instead she was met with a mouthful of fluffy pillow, "Heyyy! You'll regret that!" She picked up Jin's pillow and threw it down full force into his face._

"_Hah! You know you can't beat me!" he picked up his pillow again and threw it at her, but she ducked and it missed. Xiao then picked up her own pillow and threw it at him full force. Unfortunately, she overshot, and it went flying over Jin's head and over the side of the building five stories to the garden below. _

"_Uh… dang it…" she said, feeling as though she was about to cry, "now what will I use for a pillow??" she whimpered_

"_We can share!" Jin said. He pushed their sleeping bags together and put the pillow down. They both climbed into their bags and went to sleep with their heads touching on the shared pillow. _

_Xiao woke up the next morning about ten feet away from Jin, tangled up in her sleeping bag, gripping the pillow with both hands._

Xiao realized now that she was crying, and probably had been for a while. She was a silent crier, so she didn't think anybody had noticed, but she could taste the salt as the tears ran into the corners of her mouth.

_He said he loved me..._ she thought. But then again... he hadn't, had he? She'd all but thrown herself at him. Stupid.

_After months of searching and a liberal amount of dumb luck, Xiaoyu pinpointed Jin's location. She happened to find him just after the fourth tournament, and she'd been searching for him since he disappeared just after the third tournament. She walked up to the shady motel, which advertised both vacancies and a charge-by-the-hour option. The freezing night air bit at her bare arms and legs, and she wondered why she'd dressed in a tube-top and miniskirt. Maybe she still wanted to look her best for Jin. _

_Scantily clad women, all wearing seven-inch heels and smoking cigarettes, were hanging around outside the motel. They scared Xiao, and she slipped inside the lobby as discretely as she could; however, the interior of the building was not much better._

_There were moldy-looking vinyl-covered chairs set up in the corner next to a very dead fichus plant. Behind a shabby counter stood an obese man in a sweat-and grease-soaked white t-shirt. He needed a shave, bad, and not just on his face. She figured a training bra of some sort might help him as well._

_She walked up to the desk but the guy didn't say anything to her. He was turned sideways, facing a television, so Xiao tried to get his attention, "Uh, hello?" The man made some kind of animalistic grunting noise, which she took to mean 'what do you want,' so she continued, "I'm looking for a Jin Kazama. Can you tell me the room number?" _

"_Hm, fine," he lit up a cigarette and took a few puffs on it, tore himself away from the television (which seemed to be on paid programming) and flipped through a little book with names in it, "Hm, sorry, no Jim Kazama," he replied. Xiao controlled her anger and resisted the urge to ask him to look for Jin Kazama, but she figured he would have told her if there'd been any Kazama in the book at all._

"_Well, he probably isn't using that name then. I'm looking for a young man, twenty-one years old, about six feet tall," the guy had a blank look on his face, but she went on, "uh, and he has black hair that comes up in spikes," the guy's eyes lit up._

"_Oh! I know the kid you're talkin' 'bout. Said his name was Jay King. Odd guy, always sulking. Sent one o' the hookers into his room ta cheer him up, 'n she came back sobbin'. Said he told her how pointless her life was. But he pays his bills so whatever. Room 35, third floor" he pointed to a door in the corner reading "Fire Escape Stairwell"._

_She grinned weakly at him and walked off. She could feel the guy's eyes on her, or perhaps it was just psychological, but she pulled down the back of her pleated yellow miniskirt uncomfortably and pulled open the heavy stairwell door. _

_It was cold inside; colder than it was outside, colder than a meat locker. She groaned again at her vanity, as she wrapped her arms around her torso. The navy blue top held tight to her skin and came down dangerously low on top and on the bottom only barely covered her navel, and then only thanks to the gaudy ruffle. Xiao was slightly under-qualified for the bust, and she had to keep a close eye on it and continually hike it up before it fell down to the level of Wardrobe Malfunction._

_She swung open the heavy door labeled FL 3, and stepped into the slightly-warmer hallway. The carpet had stains of all varieties on it, and the doors were scratched up, and used old fashioned keys instead of the key-cards most hotels use. Room 35 was the third door on the right. She stepped up to it anxiously, each step in her sexy stiletto heels feeling an hour long. _

_She took a deep breath and held it, and knocked three times on the door. She waited, but nobody answered, so she knocked again, this time calling out, "Hello? Jin, are you in there?" she heard feet coming toward the door and then the unmistakable sound of several locks being undone. She expected it to fly open immediately, but it opened slowly, causing her anxieties to escalate. How did she know this wasn't some kind of a trap for her? Jin's note had informed her of Heihachi's evil; how did she know this wasn't another of his evil plans?_

_She didn't want to wait any longer for her fate. She rushed into the room, slamming the door against the wall, leaving a small doorknob-shaped dent in it. She was standing there now, completely exposed to injury, her heart racing, subconsciously standing in fighting stance, breathing heavily. It even took her a few seconds to take in everything she was seeing, but she soon realized she was face to face with a strange unshaven young man with a matted tuft of hair on his head. The room was pitch black, and she couldn't make out much of his face._

"_I'm looking for Jin Kazama! Where is he?" she asked this strange man, hoping he had some idea of what she was talking about. The man gasped, with a look of severe shock on his face._

"_Xiao? What are…" but he didn't have a chance to finish. The first word that came out of his mouth was warm and familiar to her, and she leapt into his arms in a fit of excitement. Finally, after all the searching, all the dead ends, she has actually found him. She was all over him now, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her feet hanging slightly off of the ground from the distance in height. Mutually, the hug became something more. Xiao was almost comically scrambling at him, pushing him backwards, kissing him as hard as she could just to make sure that he was real until the two slammed into the wall and Xiao fell sideways onto a coffee table. _

"_Jin, I've missed you so much. I love you…" she muttered quickly to him, trying to draw him back into the kiss, but he simply looked at her blankly, almost sadly, and stepped away from her. "Jin? What's wrong?" she asked him, sitting up and composing herself. _

"_Xiaoyu, I'm sorry, but I can't do this. There's no place in my life for anybody else right now… I have a duty to fulfill. It would be too dangerous for you," he turned around and dramatically placed his palm against the window and sighed. Xiao's face underwent several dramatic changes. First she was confused, then shocked, then saddened, and then livid._

"_You bastard!" she shouted, reverting to her native language of Chinese without even realizing it, but not caring too much if Jin could understand her or not as he obviously got the gist of what she was shouting, "you just used me! You're just manipulating me, still! So you kiss me when it suits you best and throw me aside when I'm not convenient?" he started staring at her blankly, so she switched into Japanese again, "Do you even realize how much trouble I went through to find you? I searched for two years! Since the end of the tournament I have been searching! And for what? To be forsaken by a self-absorbed bastard?" through her entire rant, Jin simply stood there, staring away from her and not moving. Xiao didn't go on, she just stood their panting with rage, waiting for Jin to make a move._

_Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he spoke up, "look, Xiao, you don't need me like you think you do. You're an intelligent, capable young woman. You have so many hopes and dreams, and you need to make them happen for yourself. I don't want to let you down any more…" he couldn't have Xiao following him around. It was a liability to the both of them._

"_But..." she began, but didn't know how to go on. The words caught in her throat, coming out as an unintelligible gurgle. I love you, she wanted to say, needed to say, but couldn't. He looked so sad there, still staring outside, his hot breath fogging up the window. I love you, you selfish bastard. I've been looking for you for years. I want to be together with you and be your wife and have a perfect life together and we can leave the Mishimas behind and flee the country and live however we want. She wanted to say it to him, but she simply couldn't. Her hair was askew, her skirt completely backward, her top falling down a bit too much, and the tears streaming down her face mixed with the mascara and liner and created ugly black stains down her cheeks. "If that's really how you feel, then consider me gone."_

_She turned around and walked slowly out of the hotel room and down the hall and out of his life and out of love and in a complete and utter mess. She felt like she was going to be sick. That night, she went straight from the hotel to the nearest bar and had her first drink ever. And then her second drink ever. And her third, fourth, fifth and sixth drinks, ever._

_She woke up fifteen miles out of town on the side of the highway covered in vomit with only one shoe, no memory of the night before, and feeling so sick she would have preferred death._

As Xiao sat there contemplating that last event, she figured there were good reasons that she didn't reflect on her past very often. It hurt. It felt better for her to keep moving forward. She realized now that she had been repressing so many of these memories of Jin for such a long time. She hated thinking about him and the sick feeling it gave her. She could only think, over and over and over again, he _used_ me. I was just young and stupid and cute and willing to give everything to him and he just let me love him when it was convenient. That isn't love.

And he wants to love me now that it's convenient...?

She was bawling now. Luckily, it had still gone unnoticed by the person next to her and the others on the plane. Most were sleeping now. She hadn't realized how much time had gone by; she'd simply been trapped in her head, unable to stop the memories. She didn't want to remember anything else, but at the moment it didn't seem to be up to her.

She could only keep thinking: he was using me. The entire time, he was using me.

Liar, liar.

_Steam seemed to fill the enclosed, dome-shaped stadium. People were standing up now, screaming like they'd never screamed before, all for a two-minute martial arts fight. Everything seemed to be decorated in bright red; the seats, the ceiling, the trim on the stairs, the large arena in the middle._

_Jin was winning the match by a long shot. He had this terrifying grin of malice on his face the entire time, like he was a being possessed. It disturbed Xiao, and now she was leaving the stadium. The match was almost over, she knew that, but she didn't want to stay a moment longer. She didn't know why she had come anyway._

_Jin had knocked Xiao out in round four. She'd wanted a way to save him. She kind of knew that it would never work out, but she tried. She wanted to save the whole Mishima family, and be some kind of hero. Somebody that would be looked up to. But no, now she was just a hopeless drunk and a hopeless wreck._

_Stepping out of the stadium was like disillusionment distilled. She went from the excitement and the light and the color to a dreary world where boring people shuffled along and rain poured from the grey sky onto her uncovered back. She hadn't brought an umbrella. She knew the bus from the stadium back to her apartment complex was coming in about fifteen minutes. _

_The bus stop, located only a few yards from the door of the stadium, was unfortunately uncovered as well. She could feel water not only in her hair and clothes and skin but inside of her as well. She felt soggy. Literally. Metaphorically. Metaphysically. Religiously. She was soggy. Moist. She didn't like the feeling._

_Xiao hated waiting for the bus. She wished she had her own car. She actually had enough money for one; in fact, she had built up quite a fortune from winning various martial arts tournaments around the country. She just didn't have any time to spend her money or get a license. _

_She lived in a small apartment that was furnished like a college kid's dorm, she ate almost solely noodle cups, and she got little bank notices every once in a while telling her how much interest she had gained and how much money she had in there. She kept all her money in the bank. The last time she'd bothered to check, the amount had been $500,000. It was probably a lot more now. _

_Every month, she sent $5,000 to her grandfather in China and $5,000 for the rest of her relatives to split. In any given month she earned anywhere from $5,000 to $100,000 in tournament money. There are a surprising amount of tournaments out there just ready for somebody with Xiao's elite skill to come along and win them. She'd been winning so many lately, it was almost surprising. Her skill kept growing, but she felt like it didn't even matter to her now. She only did it to pass the time._

"_XIAO!" A happy voice shouted at her, jerking her out of her wandering thoughts. She looked around. It was Jin. She didn't say anything to him and tried not to acknowledge him. She knew she would either smack him or kiss him and at the moment she didn't really want to do either. "What's up, Xiao?" He smiled at her. _

_She tried to say "Fuck off," but something malfunctioned and her mouth didn't move – her hand did. And she slapped him. For a moment he looked murderous – his eyes almost seemed to glint red. But only for a moment._

"_Xiao, I understand why you're mad at me. I just want it all to be back to the way it was. I was only trying to protect you. I'm sorry," He gave her a puppy dog stare. A _puppy dog _stare!! Who _is _this? For a moment, she'd almost believed him. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to say "Yes, Jin, I forgive you. And we can pick up right where we left off and get married and have kids, lots and lots of kids, and live happily forever after." This was the look in his face. It just wasn't real..._

"_You don't _get_ to do that! You don't get to just say sorry and make everything better. I'm not the same person who stormed out of that sleazy motel room. And that girl wasn't the same person who threw herself at you more than two years ago. Why can't you just stay out of my life? Stop poking old scabs to make them bleed. Just... go," The perfect end to this sentence would have been the bus pulling up and Xiao leaving. But she wasn't that lucky. She'd have to stand there next to him, still waiting for the bus with nowhere to go until then. She'd have to listen to him give her a _reply

"_I don't want to make you bleed, Xiao... I want to help heal the old wounds. I love you. Things are better now. I'm done running," He held out his arms to her, trying to evoke a hug. She slapped him again._

"_Well I'm not. Done running, that is. My whole life has gone to hell. The ground I'm standing on is falling into the ocean as we speak and I'm just trying to find someplace sturdy. Sorry for all the metaphors – I guess it's just a mechanism for dealing. It makes all the shit seem poetic in some way. It's all just self-delusion now..." This time, Xiao _was_ lucky. Before Jin could reply, the bus arrived. She stepped on without a backwards glance at him – but she still couldn't keep her thoughts off him._

"_Xiao, wait!" He yelled after her. It wasn't kindly, he wasn't smiling. This was a command. This was scary-Jin. "You can have everything you ever wanted! I _need_ you, Xiao! Stop!" but it was useless. The bus pulled away. Xiao shivered and cried all the way home._

Not long after that incident, Xiao had left for China, which was where all this craziness had started. In that conversation with Jin, she said she'd been running – but then she had meant it metaphorically... emotionally. Now she was running, literally, from some ludicrous threat that had nothing to do with her. No doubt Lilith had answers, but she was too drunk and this was too public a place to interrogate her at the moment. But Xiao couldn't shake the feeling that this all had something to do with Jin. With their relationship. Her mind seemed to be connecting the two events. But it really couldn't be possible. Since when had the Zaibatsu cared about Jin's romantic life? Did they think Xiao had something to do with him still? Did they think she had information? None of it made sense.

It took Xiao a moment to remember her surroundings, and what she was doing. As she looked around, she saw a stewardess talking to Lilith, and caught a little of their conversation: "...upsetting the other passengers. Please put on your underwear." Steve got out of his seat, and walked over to Lilith, who was standing on top of her suitcase in the middle of the aisle, no longer wearing the shorts that Xiao had loaned her, or, apparently, her underwear... as she was waving it in the air and singing something that sounded like Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall, only she progressed from "fifty-mfmmf" bottles on the wall to "ninety-ten".

Steve had intervened now, and, when he realized that trying to coax her off the suitcase and into her panties wasn't working, he was now jumping into the air trying to grab the underwear out of her hand, as she laughed and waved them out of his reach. She was so tall that the pair of underwear held above her head was probably more than 8 feet in the air. Eventually Steve just took a running leap at Lilith, pushed her violently off of the suitcase and wrestled the underwear out of her hand while the stewardesses tried to drag her into the bathroom. The whole scene was comical and, for now at least, broke the hold that her dark memories had had on her.


End file.
